


Settling

by saraid



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 02:52:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13538139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saraid/pseuds/saraid
Summary: After the battle of Helm's Deep.





	Settling

Helm's Deep was saved.

The Kingdom of Rohan - the people of Rohan - were saved.

Through some inexplicable combination of luck and valor, they had lived to see another sunset.

Wandering the halls of the Keep, Eowyn felt the weariness in her bones. 

And the peace in her heart.

Her brother, Eomir, had returned from his unjust exile, in time to save them.

Her King was returned to his self.

She paused at a crossway to listen. After the horrors of the night before and the tension of this day, it seemed everyone was settled. 

Her job had been the settling. Finding food and bedding and enough places to sleep for hundreds of exhausted men and soldiers and Elves. Joined by the force of women grateful to be alive and have some menfolk left, she'd organized, diplomacy and care until at last everyone had food in their belly and a blanket to share, if not one to themselves. 

Theoden had decreed they would stay here. Parties would be sent to gather food and supplies from the fields, while others repaired the damage done to Helm's Deep, but they would all be safer here for the rest of this war.

Her own bed called.

Wrapping her hands in her skirt, she turned not toward it.

Single bedchambers were few and far between, but as a hero of Helm's Deep and the Heir of Gondor, Aragorn had rated one. He'd been gracious and insisted on sharing it with his fellows, but Eowyn had insisted, giving them the chamber adjoined with his. The Elf and the dwarf seemed to like each other's company well enough.

She had three Ladies in Waiting sleeping in her chamber, on pallets on the floor. 

In their exhaustion, it was unlikely they would notice her absence.

The duties of host nudged her again. So, finally, instead of knocking directly at Aragorn's door, she went first to the next one.

It opened slowly and she had to bite back a laugh at the sight of the Dwarf, draped in a nightshirt far too long for him. The soft material looked incongruous beneath his thick beard and squashed features.

It puddled around his feet and he held the right side up with one hand, much like a maiden with a gown.

She knew from the look in his eyes that if she laughed he would shut the door in her face.

"Eventide, Master Dwarf," she said as evenly as she could. "Are you and your companion settled for the night? Do you have everything you need?"

She looked over his head. It was a small room, originally intended as servant's quarters for the master room beside it.

One of the two small beds was mussed, but the other was neatly made.

The Elf was nowhere to be seen.

"Is Le-" she stumbled over the name, "- Legolas well?"

"Well he is and well he would stay, if you don't go disturbin' him." The dwarf sounded grumpier than being woken accounted for.

 

Confused, she followed his glance toward the connecting door.

"Oh! Are he and Lord Aragorn visiting? I can fetch them something to drink, perhaps food. I thought all would be asleep this late into the night."

The Dwarf shook his head. It seemed he was impatient with her.

"There are none so blind as those who will not see," he sighed heavily, delivering this rather poetic declaration that she didn't understand at all. 

He quickly sullied the moment with a more mundane summitry.

"I'm for the privy. If you are here when I return, we might have something to talk about."

He stumped past her. Looking after him, she thought he was somehow diminished, without his axe at hand and a tall friend beside him.

Pondering his strange words, she shut the chamber door to keep the heat from the fire in, and went to the connecting door.

She moved to knock, but the sound of a soft voice stopped her.

It was low and sweet and murmuring in Elvish.

And it wasn't Aragorn's.

She'd heard him speak the language, conversing with his friends. She'd learned he'd grown up among the elves. It wasn't odd that was the tongue they used now.

The syllables were too fluid, too slippery to her mind. She didn't like the sound of it.

Then she heard her own language, still in the jeweled voice of the Elf.

"We have put that behind us, Estel. The rest lies ahead of us. Tonight we have only this time. And this."

"I cannot put it aside so easily, Legolas."

How tenderly he said that name. Eowyn shivered at the sound of it. Her mind, unbidden, offered a memory of the day before.

In the hall, when Aragorn returned. 

The tension on his face.

The smile when the Elf teased him.

The clasp of their hands when the necklace was exchanged.

Aragorn's hand had been bloodied and torn. The Elf's had been as pure and beautiful as the rest of him.

It had been a private moment in a public place. She'd only seen them from behind, but suddenly she wondered what their eyes had shown. 

"First loves are the hardest to lose," Legolas spoke as gently as Aragorn had. "And you have lost too much these days." 

"He came because of me. If I had not been here - Legolas, Haldir died because of me."

Deep sadness and no real guilt. Eowyn was startled to realize she was leaning heavily on the door. Could the Elf hear her?

The Dawrf would be cross if he found her so. But this conversation, this private moment, was too beguiling for her to abandon.

"The choice you made for Arwen does not apply here." Legolas again. Sounding firm and tender. "I am not a young girl caught in the dream of romance. I would remain in Middle Earth if you did not."

"Legolas..." a sigh. He sounded...sad.  
"Grief will not bow my back, Aragorn. Only the lack of a life well lived."

 

She could bear no more. Without even a knock, Eowyn opened the door. It swung easily, the hinges smooth leather and not metal. A draping of curtain hung before it, to give privacy to the inhabitant when servants entered unannounced. Unlike some, it was made of thick, harsh stuff, and so hadn't been claimed as blanket or bedding. 

It also contained holes, somehow conveniently placed at eye level.

Damming herself, she peered through them.

Tears welled in her eyes and blurred her vision, though she saw well enough what she was seeing.

The bed was at the other end of the chamber, nearer the fire. Little more than a large feather tick on a frame, it still wasn't so large that two male beings could fit on it comfortably. Yet they managed.

From her angle she could see almost everything.

The Elf, stretched out on his back. Flat and smooth and cool. Ankles crossed, slender, elegant feet relaxed.

His hair caught the firelight as it spread across the dark wool of the blankets, making it look like moonlight splashed across the bed.

His skin glowed with the faintest sheen of perspiration and the beauty she'd never thought to see.

All of his skin, for he was as naked as she'd never seen an Elf or Man be.

Women of her station weren't exposed to this kind of immodesty. Even after they were married, being naked and uncovered would be brazen. In caring for the sick and wounded she'd seen perhaps more than she was supposed to, but had yet been protected from the full view of a man.

The line of the Elf's body was unbroken on the side she could see, from the top of his head to the toes on his feet.

The curve of buttock, the rise of chest - all of this drew her eyes and she bit the inside of her mouth.

How could anything male be so beautiful? Next to him, Aragorn seemed... huge.

Huge and dark and overbearingly powerful.

It was strange, because she knew they were of a size. Next to each other they became a play on light and dark, but lying down...

With Aragorn on his side, next to Legolas, one muscled arm thrown over the pale chest...His dark head resting on a slim shoulder. Tilted downwards.

Legolas was stroking his hair, as tenderly as any mother with her babe.

As she watched, Aragorn tipped his head up. Legolas' hand slipped down to his chin and held him there for a kiss.

Eowyn gasped. How could she not have seen this?!

"Seen enough?"

The Dwarf's voice behind her made her jump.

The two on the bed started. Legolas had a knife in his hand and was pushing Aragorn behind him before she'd had the chance to hear it all.

"Gimli!" he called, not putting the weapon down. Beside him she thought she saw Aragorn's shoulders shaking. Was he laughing?

"Too many eyes, Master Elf!" the Dwarf called back. His hand pushed Eowyn into the room despite her frantic head shaking.

 

"My Lady." Legolas put his hand down and relaxed back. The knife vanished somewhere among the bedclothes.

"What game do you play here, Eowyn?" Propped on an elbow, so close to the Elf's side, Aragorn studied her with cool eyes. "Do you seek to cause mischief this night?"

Blushing fiercely, she knew she couldn't explain. What had driven her to this invasion of privacy?!

The Elf was glaring at her. Boldly he put his arm around Aragorn and pulled him closer.

"You've found yet another admirer, Estel," he said softly. "I warned you it would come to this."

"You said nothing of being naked in bed with you when it happened!" Aragorn laughed softly. "Truly, I do not seek this attention, beloved."

The word made Eowyn shake. She tried to turn away before she was humiliated further, but the Dwarf prevented her.

"I see why you do not flaunt your affair," she whispered. A part of her wanted to hurt them, to hate them. They had no right to mock her. Aragorn had been kind to her. He'd taken her in his arms and held her after the final battle.

Or had that been the imaginings of a love sick girl?

Where had he gone after he left her?

Had he joined her at dinner or during the scant moments she'd had to herself through the day? He hadn't even sought her out.

What she had attributed to exhaustion had actually been simple non interest. He hadn't sought her out because he hadn't wanted to.

The humiliation was almost more than she could bear and she spoke more viciously than she intended.

"The warriors of Rohan would not follow you so boldly into battle if they knew what warms your bed at night!"

Aragorn stiffened.

"Have a care, Theoden's kin. I have no wish to wound a member of his house, but if you continue..."

Legolas put his fingers over the Man's mouth.

"Hush, melethron. She does not understand what she rejects." He looked at her and there was such sadness in his eyes. Pity. It stung, but she said no more.

"Though we must shield our love from the narrow vision of Men, among Elven kind it is nothing remarkable."

"Except when measured by the depth and breadth of it," Aragorn kissed the finger son his lips and took the and away, holding it. "I am sorry, Eowyn, if you mistook my courtesy for more than friendship offered. There is only room for one in my bed, and in my heart."

"Melethron," Legolas whispered. His face twisted into an amused smile. "That was almost romantic."

"Then I take it back," Aragorn said promptly. He brought the hand to his lips and carefully opened the fingers with his own.

He licked the palm, gazing up at Legolas as he did so.

Legolas let out a sound Eowyn could have called a sigh, only so much...richer.

It was plain they had forgotten she was in the room, of no longer cared. Aragorn cupped the back of the Elf's head and bought their mouths together. The moonsilk hair slipped over them. 

 

The Dwarf grabbed her by the arm and hustled her out of there, almost tangling her in the drapery. When the door shut behind them he gave her an honest glare, then turned back to his bed. With some thumping and effort he climbed upon it and drew the covers up.

She knew she would never laugh at him again.

A soft moan came through the door and hot tears stung her eyes. 

It wasn't the humiliation she felt, or the anger. She knew it was just, she had earned it well enough, with her silly dreams and rude behavior.

It was hard to get out the door. Once in the passage again, she rubbed at her face with her hand, trying to make the tears stop.

Determined, she set off away from them, but was stopped again when she heard a louder, more emotional moan.

Too have such a love... hidden or no, it was more than she believed she would ever feel.

Perhaps after this night it was more than she deserved.

With her composure regained, Eowyn was able to walk slowly down the passageway, toward her room.

If she listened to the moans and laughs that seeped out from beneath the door behind her, she didn't allow herself to show it.


End file.
